Literature and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604)

Home , Spanish Armada, Treaty of London (1604)

FACULTAD de FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS DEPARTAMENTO de FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Grado en Estudios Ingleses

TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO

Claudia Roberta Dragan

Tutora: Berta Cano Echevarría

2016-2017

ABSTRACT

Literature can be considered a representation of the history with which it interacts, then from this assumption it can be understood that literature helps to constitute what is known as history. After providing the historical context of the Anglo-Spanish war which took place between 1585 and 1604, I will work with a series of literary texts belonging to the period of the war, written by authors such as Lope de Vega, Thomas Deloney, Miguel de Cervantes and John Donne. The texts make reference to relevant episodes of the war, and the aim of this dissertation is to examine how Spanish and English authors portray the war in literature and in which ways their arguments, thoughts and opinions can be compared, finally having a broader picture of the Anglo-Spanish relations during the sixteenth century.

KEYWORDS: Anglo-Spanish War, Lope de Vega, Thomas Deloney, Miguel de Cervantes, John Donne.

La literatura puede ser considerada una representación de la historia con la que interactúa, por tanto, basándonos en esta afirmación se puede entender que la literatura ayuda a constituir lo que se conoce como historia. Tras proporcionar el contexto histórico de la guerra anglo-española que tuvo lugar entre 1585 y 1604, trabajaré con una serie de textos literarios pertenecientes al periodo de la guerra, escritos por autores tales como Lope de Vega, Thomas Deloney, Miguel de Cervantes y John Donne. Los textos hacen referencia a episodios importantes de la guerra, y el propósito principal de esta tesis es examinar de qué manera autores españoles e ingleses retratan la guerra en la literatura y comparar sus argumentos, pensamientos y opiniones, para finalmente adquirir una visión más amplia a cerca de las relaciones anglo-españolas durante el siglo dieciséis.

PALABRAS CLAVE: Guerra anglo-española, Lope de Vega, Thomas Deloney, Miguel de Cervantes, John Donne.

INDEX

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………….. p. 1

2. Historical context…………………………………………………………. p. 3

2.1 Relevant episodes of the war…………………………………………. p. 4

3. The literature of the war…………………………………………………... p. 11

3.1. Texts regarding the Spanish Armada………………...……………… p. 11

3.2 Texts regarding the Sack of Cadiz…………………………………… p. 24

3.3. Texts regarding the Islands Voyage……………….………………… p. 31

4. Conclusions………………………………………………………………... p. 33

5. Reference List…………………………………………………………….. p. 35

1. INTRODUCCTION

Literary and historical texts cannot be considered to be sets of objective and fixed facts, because history, together with the literature with which it interacts, need to be interpreted. As Abrams (1957, p.183) puts it:

Any text is conceived as a discourse which, although it may seem to present, an external reality, in fact are called representations—that is, verbal formations which are the ideological products or cultural constructs of the historical conditions specific to an era.

Writers from all times have captured their representations of historical events in literary texts, showing their feelings, opinions and sensations, in order to explain the reality as they perceive it. Historians claim that this literary texts are embedded in their contexts, and they help to constitute what we call history.

This way of observing past cultures based on the examination of literary texts is known as New Historicism. The origins of this kind of literary criticism can be traced back to the 1980’s, and it focuses on Renaissance Studies. According to Hoover, New Historicism proposes “a universal model of historical change”, based upon thinkers such as Karl Marx or Jeremy Bentham, among others (1992, p.6). The principles of this discipline oppose strongly “the view that the study of literature should be done independently of social and political contexts” (Hoover, 1992, p.8). Hence, the topic of this dissertation falls within New Historicism, as the Anglo-Spanish relations during the sixteenth century are studied and portrayed thanks to literary texts and vice versa.

Additionally, since I am impelled to follow up what appear to be similarities between authors and texts from different cultural contexts, my study would also fall within what is known as Comparative Literature, term that started to arouse interest at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Bassnett points out that “Comparative literature involves the study of texts across cultures, that it is indisciplinary and that it is concerned with patterns of connection in literatures across both time and space” (1993, p.1).

The present paper focuses on the Anglo-Spanish war that took place between 1585 and 1604. This war had a great impact in the cultures and relations of Spain and England, and can be considered one of the biggest and most important confrontations between the two countries. The aim is to investigate how this war appears represented in literary texts

1 from those years and to contrast the English and Spanish different views. With that purpose, I will proceed to consider some pieces of texts, such as poems and ballads, and see how English and Spanish authors portray their thoughts and opinions about the war in literature, and the ways in which their arguments differ or not.

The reason why I chose this topic is rooted in the fact that there are no previous studies that cover this specific subject. Although this war concerns one of the most transcendental events from the sixteenth century and which has determined the Anglo-Spanish relations, many of the literary texts dedicated to it are left without importance. Moreover, I decided to make this comparative analysis in order to gain further knowledge on a topic I have previously studied.

Before considering the literary texts and, in order to understand them better, I will provide the historical context of the war. I will mention the most relevant events that took place during the war and how they happened, according to various reliable sources which will appear reflected later.

2. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

In order to understand the reasons of the Anglo-Spanish war, we have to contemplate the international relations between Spain and England during the last decades of the sixteenth century.

In Western Europe, the Spanish Empire ruled by the king Philip II gained an enormous power. Abreu calls the sixteenth century Spain’s “siglo felicísimo” (1996, p.93), because the rest of the reigns recognise Spain’s superiority and they respect and envy it. Its power was reinforced by the alliance with the vast Portuguese Empire, to which Philip II was king for being the son of Isabella of Portugal, and with other smaller ones such as England, France, some German principalities and the Netherlands. The problem appeared when the interests of each country started to differ, causing confrontations among them and creating new alliances.

First of all, one of the initial causes of the rupture of the alliance was the failure of the political marriage arranged by the previous kings of Spain and England, Charles I and Henry VIII, respectively. When Philip was still a prince, Charles I married him with Mary Tudor, Queen of England before Elizabeth. But even if Philip went to live with her to the English court, he was never considered an English king by the protestant elite, but a simple governor, breaking with the Spanish expectations (Bustos Rodríguez, 1996, p.14).

Secondly, after Mary’s death (1558), what became the biggest causes of conflict between Spain and England were religion and commerce. While Philip II was a Catholic ruler, Queen Elizabeth I was a Protestant queen in England. She started to intervene in the legitimate rights that Spain had both in Europe and in the American colonies. England’s commerce and industry were in growth, therefore their interest on the new colonies and the trade in the Indies became notorious. This same commercial interest was shared by the Netherlands and, because of that, England formed a new alliance with them in order to fight their common enemy. The Netherlands started providing England military help, both inside the country against the Catholic Monarchy and on sea, capturing Hispano-Portuguese ships. In this aspect, England became a huge inconvenience for Spain, which had by that time a monopoly on the new lands. Besides, the English monarchy started to support several rebel movements against Spain that began to rise in Europe. In the Netherlands, for example, the presence of the troops installed by Phillip II,

3 headed by the duke of Alba, started to have enemies. The emergence of Calvinism implanted in the country an extreme spirit of independence (Bustos Rodríguez, 1996).

Thirdly, the first sacking expeditions are another antecedent of the war. For instance, the sack of the Antilles by Hawkins, which took place in 1565, who two years later and together with Sir Francis Drake, an English sea-captain, sacked an important harbour in Veracruz. Spain, in response, appropriated all the English goods from the Netherlands. For this reason, the English confiscated five ships to Spain’s ally, Genoa. Moreover, Elizabeth I starts supporting Drake’s piratic actions, who attacks several Spanish colonies in America, becoming a national hero. To sum up, all those first action-reaction confrontations lead to an open war in 1585, which was not declared but it was clearly present (Bustos Rodríguez, 1996). During this nineteen years war there continued to be intermittent battles between the two kingdoms, until 1604 when peace is re-established with the Treaty of London (Abreu y Bertodano, 1740, p.243).

2.1. RELEVANT EPISODES OF THE WAR

Defending the harbours was a very difficult task; Spain’s big extension of colonies in America and its isles resulted in an ineffective control and protection of all of them. It was very easy for English pirates to invade any of those ports by surprise, and turn them into their hiding places. Philip II put a great interest in defending Spain’s territory, but the funds he provided for this matter were not enough. There was a need of better fortifications in the cities, better preparation of the military forces to defeat the enemy, etc. As a consequence, there continued to be piratic attacks in the colonies, such as the ones in 1585 against Santo Domingo and Cartagena carried out, again, by Francis Drake. He also attacked in 1587 the city of Cádiz, where it was placed one of the main harbours of Spain, and therefore, it was a strategic point. It was also a very rich city, because of the great quantity of goods arriving from the colonies and the Indies through its harbour. The city was taken by surprise during the evening while it was unprotected. Once there, Drake sunk several galleys but he could not manage to land on the territory as he wished. This failure lead him to attack the coasts of Algarve and the Islands of Tercera in the Azores (Bustos Rodríguez, 1996). The city of Cadiz suffered another more important attack during the war, which will be discussed later in this section.

As immediate punishment, one of the war strategies proposed in Spain was to support the Irish Catholics, in order to get advantage of their geographical proximity to England and use it as a bridge to penetrate the country. But this option was not so easy to fulfil, it was a long process, so they chose a second option which was faster. It consisted in the creation of an armada with which they could land in the coasts of England and attack them in their own land. This famous armada was called The Spanish Armada.

Philip II started massive preparations for the Armada, counting with the support of his allies in Italy and Portugal under the precept that “the Catholic King should wage this war on behalf of Christendom” (Scully, 2003, p.647). Another event that convinced Philip even more of the necessity of an armada was the English execution of Mary, the Queen of Scots, considered by the Catholics as the legitimate sovereign to the English Throne (Morgan, 2006). To this news of Spanish menace, Elizabeth I made ties with the Moroccan and Turkish rulers in an attempt to unite Islamism and Protestantism against the Catholics (Scully, 2003). This shows the huge religious implications of this war.

Philip managed to create the Armada by 1588, year in which it was sent towards England, headed by Alfonso Pérez de Guzman y Sotomayor, entitled as The Duque of Medina-Sidonia. Despite of all his investments in the creation of a powerful Armada, the truth is that the English prepared more effectively for the battle. As Scully (2003, p.323) states “the English held the advantage in terms of the number, the speed, and the manoeuvrability of their ships, and in the range and fire power of their artillery”. Together with these advantages, they also had the wind in their favour. Lord Howard of Effingham, the commander of the English fleet, was in charge of stopping the Spanish ships’ advance. At the very beginning of the journey, the storms on the coasts of Portugal impeded the Spanish Armada to follow their pre-planned path. Nevertheless, Medina-Sidonia, obeying the King’s orders, managed to put the fleet back on its way (Morgan, 2006).

During the first encounter on sea, English fire-ships loaded with explosives forced the Armada to retire. The next battle took place at Gravelines, where the English sank many ships and wounded a great number of Spanish soldiers. The wind was the ultimate element which allowed the English victory (Morgan, 2006). This storm created later the religious legend of the “The Protestant wind which swept the Spaniards from the sea” as a “work of God to chastise their (Catholic Spaniards) malicious practices” (Scully, 2003 p.257).

Finally, Medina-Sidonia took the decision of returning home by rounding Scotland and Ireland, being unaware of the presence of more English troops near the Irish coasts. There, the English fleet awaiting destroyed more ships and captured and drowned many soldiers. There was a terrible loss of lives, remaining only about five hundred men from the thousands that took part in the expedition. Spain remained shocked at the defeat of their Armada, and sent rescue for the remaining survivors and to look for missing ships. (Morgan, 2006).

Public celebrations took place in all protestant areas in England as well as in the Netherlands. This defeat, surprisingly, did not awake despair in Spain but a sense of resistance and restored confidence in the rightness of their Catholic cause. People from all over the country remained devoted to their King and provided more men and money to build new faster and better ships in order to continue the war against England. Besides, Spain’s Catholic allies did not cease in sending them help and money, especially from Italy (Scully, 2003).

As to the city of Cadiz, a second attack took place in 1596, and this time it was a successful one. This attack gained not only a huge national importance, but also it was another spectacular triumph of the English forces which added prestige to Elizabethan England. This attack is a very controversial one, as there are many different versions of the facts, not only the English and Spanish versions differ, but there are also variations of the facts inside one same side. The version used as the main reference for this dissertation is the one of Fray Pedro de Abreu, which is one of the best known for being a complete eye-witness account. The Cadiz expedition was headed by the English commanders Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham, and they had overlapping responsibilities; Essex was in charge of the army and Howard in charge of the fleet. Another very important figure that participated in the expedition was the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh; he was part of the naval forces and his great rivalry with Essex has to be pointed out. Instead of focusing on unity, the most important personalities on the English side were consumed by an Elizabethan obsession of pride and personal honour (Hammer, 1997).

The attack started with the unexpected arrival of Anglo-Dutch ships to the Spanish coasts during the month of June, when the Spanish fleet, including a great number of

6 merchant ships, was anchored in the Bay of Cádiz. The Anglo-Dutch forces, finding little resistance, captured Spanish ships and penetrated the city, which was burglarized and burnt during nineteen days. To this news of attack, the Duque of Medina-Sidonia, put in charge of the defence by the King, sent help to Cádiz from various parts of Spain (Bustos Rodríguez, 1996). The problem was that he was very slow in sending soldiers, in fact, it took fourteen days for backup to arrive, when Cadiz was already burnt and sacked. The number of soldiers sent to help was immense, however, they were incompetent when using weapons and their defence strategies were very unclear (Castro, 1858, p.404). The consequences of this failure of the Spanish forces to properly protect Cádiz were disastrous.

Another way by which the English forces obtained a great quantity of goods was by capturing, sacking and sinking Spanish merchant ships, which contained the greatest part of the riches and which were unarmed, and therefore, easy to capture. A very relevant fact is the decision taken in an attempt to stop the enemies enriching at the expense of Spain’s ships booty; Medina-Sidonia ordered the destruction of the Spanish merchant ships in Cadiz (Motley, 1888). For instance, and according to Abreu’s version of the facts, the only galleon which remained untouched by the English, “Santo Tomás”, was burned by its own captain, so it could not be sacked as the other three (Bustos Rodríguez, 1996, p. 37). Having to recur to this solution is a clear consequence of the uncertainty and desperation suffered in Spain. This expedition supposed another devastating economic loss for Spain.

Philip’s strategy of reaction to the sack of Cadiz was the creation of a second armada and plans of a new invasion. The King had the notion that “any attack must be answered by an appropriate response, since a failure to act would be taken by friends and foes as a sign of weakness, and ultimately to the ruin of his states” (Tenace, 2003, p. 859). Tenace (2003) argues that this need the King had of rapidly responding to the English attacks made it difficult to produce a long-term and more efficient strategy. This seems to be quite true, because if we look back to the mentioned English attacks, we can observe that Philip is always rapidly trying to pay back with a counter-stroke, and he always fails tremendously. He failed to punish England both with the first Armada and in the same way he will fail in this revenge for the sack of Cadiz, as we are about to see.

In order to destabilize England, Philip wanted either to create an alliance with the Irish rebels, headed by the Earl of Tyrone, who were also Elizabeth’s enemies, or to directly invade Ireland, opening a new front from which to attack. To do so, Philip created another great Second Armada, under the command of the Adelantado of Castile, which was supposed to launch towards Ireland in 1596. But the same as happened with the First Spahish Armada, a terrible storm shattered the fleet, causing the loss of many ships and the death of thousands of soldiers. The remaining force had to retire to the harbour of Ferrol (Cadwallader, 1923).

Philip, not aiming to give up, sent help and more soldiers to the harbour of Ferrol in order to create a Third Armada, which would complete the task that the second one could not achieve. The Third Armada launched only one year later, in 1957, headed by the same commander. Unfortunately, another terrible Atlantic storm impeded Philip’s plan, resulting again into an enormous failure (Tenace, 2003). Many ships were shattered again, however, this time the losses were not so catastrophic. The Third Armada was the last of its kind executed by the Spaniards under the rule of Philip II (Cruz, 2008).

Furthermore, it is important to mention that in the same year the Third Armada was launched, 1597, it also took place the Islands Voyage, which was an Anglo-Dutch expedition to the Azores headed entirely by the Earl of Essex. Another important figure on the English fleet was Sir Walter Raleigh, who had to support and assist Essex. But, the same as happened during the sack of Cadiz, their rivalry brought problems to Elizabeth. Initially, as public opinion in England dreaded another attempt of Spanish invasion, Elizabeth planned this voyage in order to stop the Spanish Third Armada even before they could leave the Ferrol Harbour. But, the Atlantic storm that impeded Philip’s plans of a third invasion, also affected the English fleet (Cadwallader, 1923).

The storm dispersed the English ships and pushed some of them towards the Azores Islands, impeding them to stop the launching of the Third Spanish Armada. In addition, Raleigh was on the first ship that reached the islands and once he went ashore, he decided to sack the Azores. This made Essex furious, as the aim was to stop the Spanish fleet and not to sack the islands. The expedition was a total failure, and once Essex was back in England, he complained before the Queen about his subordinate’s, Raleigh, disobedience. Elizabeth had predilection for Raleigh and, by contrast, for various reasons previous to

Islands Voyage, the Queen accumulated certain disdain for Essex. On account of this, the failure of the expedition fell mostly on Essex, who was imprisoned. A number of other circumstances led to his execution in 1601 (Fernández Duro, 1972).

Finally, one year after the expedition, in 1598, Philip II became very ill and died during the spring of that same year. His successor Philip III tried to reinvigorate the war effort against England, but after the failures of the last decade, Spain was not ready for another English invasion, therefore, peace was perceived to be the only option for an exhausted nation (Tenace, 2003).

3. THE LITERATURE OF THE WAR

In this section, a series of literary texts belonging to the time of the war, both Spanish and English, are going to be studied following the chronology of the events. Another factor taken into account when choosing the texts, apart from their pertinence to their time, is the relevance of the authors. Lope de Vega, Thomas Deloney, Miguel de Cervantes and John Donne, writers whose works will be the focus in this dissertation, are important personalities, therefore it stands to reason that their words and opinions might have caused an impact on their society.

On top of that, as the Anglo-Spanish war lasted nineteen years, it has been necessary to select some of the episodes in order to provide a more accurate analysis. The events selected from the ones depicted in section 2.1. will be regarding The First Spanish Armada (1588), The Sack of Cadiz (1596), and the Islands Voyage (1597). This section is divided in three subsections in which four texts will be dedicated to the Armada, two Spanish and two English; two texts will deal with the Sack of Cadiz, one Spanish and one English; and finally one English text regarding the Islands Voyage.

My purpose will be to read the history of the war through these texts, taking advantage of the connexion between history and literature, and provide a broader image of the views on the war of both countries. I will contribute by considering material which has been generally ignored and relate it with the existing analysis of texts, in order to finally gain a more expanded understanding of the ideas that circulated about the war.

For a start, I will have to go back to the very beginning of the war, when Philip II, tired of the continuous English attacks to Spain’s colonies, took the decision of creating The Spanish Armada with the purpose of performing an invasion in England. Various authors have written about this famous Armada, with a variety of purposes that go from enhancing to making gest of it, as we are about to see.

3.1. TEXTS REGARDING THE SPANISH ARMADA

One very well-known Spanish author who wrote about the Armada is Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio. He stands out for being one of the most prolific writers in the history of literature, and a key figure during the Golden Age in Spain. Moreover, he was not only a

11 great poet but also a soldier. He was born in 1562, in Madrid, when Philip’s dominion was on its highest point, and died in 1635 in Madrid as well. Being just twenty years old, he started participating in the expeditions organised by the King (Rodríguez González, 2015). Patriotism and passion for Spain will appear reflected in his works, result probably brought about to his youthful participation in the war.

One of the expeditions in which he participated was the one of The Spanish Armada, reason why he was inspired in writing about it. He was twenty five at the time in which the expedition took place and he, together with his younger brother, were on board of the Spanish galleon “San Juan” (Rodríguez González, 2015). One of the first poems Lope wrote about the Armada was a sonnet, well recognised nowadays, which was published within his collection of Rimas, in 1602. The sonnet is the following one:

Sonnet 46 A la jornada de Inglaterra a bordo del «San Juan » Famosa armada de estandartes llena, partidos todos de la roja estola, árboles de la fe, donde tremola tanta flámula blanca en cada entena;

selva del mar, a nuestra vista amena, que del cristiano Ulises la fe sola te saca de la margen española, contra la falsedad de una sirena,

id, y abrasad el mundo, que bien llevan las velas viento, y alquitrán los tiros, que a mis suspiros y a mi pecho deban.

Segura de los dos podéis partiros, fiad que os guarden, y fiad que os muevan: tal es mi fuego, y tales mis suspiros.

In this sonnet, which is composed in the traditional Petrarchan form, Lope takes up the topic from an external perspective. Meaning this that, even if he writes in first person singular, he may be not specifically referring to himself. Any Spanish Catholic could feel identified with the lyrics. The sonnet is a farewell, and it refers to the exact moment in which The Armada departs from the harbour towards England. The patriotic sonnet conveys an encouraging message about the outcome of the expedition.

The first quatrain is mostly descriptive; it gives an image of the whole fleet which is leaving the harbour. The viewer can see from a distance each ship with its standards and pennants. There is also an allusion to the Catholic faith, which would accompany the fleet during its journey, as the standards are made of sacred red stole, usually worn by priests. Moreover, “the tree of faith” can be seen as a religious symbol. It may be referring to the tree of life from the Bible, whose fruits are Christ himself (Hollis and Simpson, 2006). Again, this would mean that faith stands as one of the most important pillars of the expedition.

In the second quatrain, Lope makes reference, by mentioning Ulysses and the siren, to a passage of Homer’s Odyssey. In Greek mythology, sirens were initially seen as evil creatures to whose chants sailors always succumb, leading them to damnation. The sonnet only mentions the presence of one siren, therefore it can be a representation of Queen Elizabeth, the enemy whose Protestant voice tries to destroy the Spanish Catholic faith. In the passage of the Odyssey to which Lope refers here, Ulysses is travelling the seas, and when he approaches the Island of the Sirens, he orders his sailors to cover their ears with wax so they could not hear the chants and fall in temptation. As a result, they successfully pass the island and continue their voyage (Las Sirenas, 2013). In the sonnet, Ulysses can be a representation of the Armada, and Lope says that only faith will make the victory possible. In this case, then, the only trick the Armada, as Ulysses, has to use to defeat the enemy who wants the destruction of the fleet, Elizabeth, is true faith.

The final tercets put an end to the encouraging message of the sonnet as a whole. The personal voice appears for the first time in the last verses of both stanzas. This voice encourages the fleet to go and do its duty with no fear, because the strength of heart and determination that resides inside all the faithful ones would help them to win the battle.

All in all, this first sonnet written by Lope is clearly very patriotic, religious and pro-war. It represents the dreams of a patriot who thinks that nothing can go wrong.

Furthermore, after the war, Lope dedicated a very long poem, formed by one hundred and thirty seven octets, which appears in the fourth volume of the third book from his work Corona Trágica, published in 1627, to relate in a detailed way his experiences and views about this expedition. This poem is very different from the previous one; it is a more realistic and personal account, as we can see in these introductory verses:

Ceñí en servicio de mi rey la espada, antes que el labio me ciñese el bozo, que para la Católica jornada (115) no se excusaba generoso mozo. (…)

In this fragment of the poem, Lope speaks about how he voluntarily decided to fight for his King and the Catholic cause, how he accepts enlisting with no excuse. This shows the great importance given to his country. It is known that by that time he had just married, and probably his wife was already pregnant (Mata Induraín, 2013), however he still chose to leave it all behind and fight for Spain. Nonetheless, he also wrote a poem in which he describes how hard it was for him to depart with the fleet while seeing his broken-hearted wife watching him leave from the harbour. Biographers have argued that some of the reasons why he might have chosen to enlist were seeking new adventures and enhancing his valour as a human being by showing his strength in battle, etc. (Mata Induraín, 2013). Maybe he wanted to find new inspirations for his writing as well.

Some critics have argued that the second verse in this fragment is a bit ambiguous, because it describes someone very young. He was twenty five when he enlisted in this expedition, therefore he was a bit old for being beardless. One explanation found is that in this fragment he may be referring to his younger brother, Juan (Rodríguez González, 2015), who despite being young, followed the same path as Lope. Unfortunately, Juan died during this expedition. Probably, Lope’s purpose when using the first person singular was to put emphasis on the individual’s devotion for his country, so that anyone could feel identified.

Rompen los ayres cajas y trompetas, (121) y parece que tiros y arcabuces por la región del norte son cometas con truenos graves y con breves luces (…) y como el fin es de la Fé la gloria, (127) en sombras aparece la victoria. (…)

As the poem continues, it can be seen how Lope refers to the terrible storm that caught them at the very beginning of the expedition. He describes how the strong winds started to destroy the some parts of the ships and he uses metaphors to describe the frightening storm, for instance, he compares the thunders with shots and the lightening with comets.

The two last verses are crucial because they are very meaningful. Lope means that the aim of their Catholic faith is being glorious, however this time he has a gloomy prediction about the end of the expedition; he says that victory appears to be in the shadows. When the storm began and the ships were unable to follow the path they should, Medina Sidonia, the commander of the Armada, had serious considerations about whether the expedition should go on or not. As it has been mentioned in the previous section, he only decided to continue because of the King’s orders (Morgan, 2006). These two verses can be attributed to that exact moment of uncertainty in which the crew of the fleet did not know if with that weather conditions they could end up being victorious or if, on the contrary, they would need a miracle to defeat the enemy and remain alive. All in all, what won in the end was Philip’s determination to fulfil what they had started, even if the skies told them they should not. Tu viste bendecir, noble Lisboa, desta infeliz jornada el estandarte, (130) si bien la misma envidia ensalza y loa inculpable valor, trájico Marte: mas aunque lleve el corazón en la proa, si no tiene los vientos de su parte, ni passo el mar para surgir seguro, (135) pelea el agua, y el arena es muro.

As the poem goes on, Lope starts mentioning the consequences of the decision taken by Philip of continuing with the expedition. Here Lope makes reference to the city of Lisbon, from where they were supposed to depart. He calls Lisbon “noble” because, as we know, Spain and Portugal were part of the same kingdom during the war. He personifies the city as the unfortunate viewer of Spain’s great loss. Lope mentions the God of Mars, God of the War, who, in this case, was not on the Spanish side. He explains that no matter how much determination and strength was found on the hearts of the whole fleet, if the weather did not accompany them from the beginning, there was no chance of winning. The two last verses express that, at that moment, England was not their enemy anymore, but the furious waters who fought their ships, trying to drown them, and the sand which acted as walls, impeding the fleet to continue.

Assi triunfó Isabel, y assi Maria (137) no tuvo de sus lágrimas venganza.

These two last verses can be placed after the battle was already lost. Lope mentions Elizabeth’s triumph, and he makes allusion to Mary, the Catholic Queen of Scots, whose death could not be avenged. As it has been said in section 2.1., the English execution, ordered by Elizabeth, of the Queen Mary was one of the reasons that determined Philip to believe that there was need of an invasion. Mary was considered by the Catholics as the legitimate Queen of England, and if she became Queen, Spain could have had England as an ally again. Hence, her execution made King Philip even more furious and more decided to attack.

These are only some fragments of the long poem, but from this information it is possible to depict how Lope wants to present the experience. He uses the first person singular to tell the events, which makes the poem very personal, and he uses rhetoric to talk about a very tragic event. Throughout the poem, he makes various references to the weather, mostly on how Atlantic storms impeded Spain’s purposes. It is a fact that the weather was one of the greatest inconveniences for Spain during this war. Then, it should be included here the famous statement Philip II made once the battle was lost; opinion with which, as seen in the poem, Lope coincides. The statement says “Yo no mandé a mis barcos a luchar contra los elementos” (García Luances, 2001). Philip’s lament aimed to emphasize that their loss was not due to the weakness of his fleet, or due to the opponent’s

16 extreme superiority, but to unfortunate weather. Of course, on the English side, this weather was a signal of God’s predilection for the Protestant faith. As mentioned previously, they named it “The Protestant wind” (Scully, 2003 p.257).

The literary texts that Lope dedicated to The Spanish Armada are very different, but they also share some characteristics in terms of style. Because of the language used, both poems can be classified as rhetorical. There is perfect rhyme in all the stanzas and, Lope also uses plenty of descriptions and he makes allusions to the elements of nature in both texts. Hence, it can be said that even after living in first person the consequences of his King’s decisions, Lope still accepts and supports him and the Spanish cause. It has been said in the previous section that the loss of this battle did not awake despair in Spain, but a sense of resistance and self-confidence as a country. Thus, Lope could be included within this group of supportive Spanish citizens. To show his admiration for Philip II, he dedicated him an epitaph, included in his collection of Rimas, called “De Filipo II, el Prudente” (Pedraza Jiménez, 1994, p. 313). In this epitaph, Lope enhances Philip’s courage and the nobility of his soul.

Let us move on now to talk about an English writer called Thomas Deloney, who, during the late sixteenth century, was one of the most recognised balladeers in London. The exact date and city of his birth are not certain, but it is known that he lived part of his life in London, city where he died in 1600. Besides being a writer of poems and ballads, he was also the yeoman of a guild in London, which regulated the production of silk. He had a successful career as a writer of ballads, and he wrote about a wide range of topics and themes. There are plenty of his ballads still surviving because they were collected after his death in two volumes, Strange Histories of kings, princes and dukes, whose earliest edition was published in 1602 and The garland of new will, whose earliest edition was published in 1623. Nonetheless, many of his ballads were lost, as he used to publish them separately as broadsheets (Hentschell, 2012).

There was a huge increase of ballads during the summer and autumn of 1588, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. At that moment, the streets in England were filled with excitement and joy. Sixteenth century ballads were designed mainly to address the common people and to represent their thoughts, for this reason ballads were sung on the streets to express the pride over victory. Therefore ballads were rhymed in order to be

17 melodic and to fulfil their purpose. Moreover, reading ballads makes possible to place the readers very near to any episode and makes it easier for them to understand the characteristics of it (Mc Aleer, 1963).

According to the Stationer’s Register, a number of 27 ballads appeared between the months of June and November from 1588, all dealing with the Spanish Armada (Mc Aleer, 1963, p.602). November was the month in which most of the ballads appeared, exactly 9 of them, and this was because the nineteenth of November was set by Elizabeth as a national day for thanksgiving. On top of that, the two ballads that appeared in September were recorded at the Stationers’ Hall in London where Elizabeth delivered a speech on her knees, in which she publicly thanked God for being on her side during the Spanish Armada’s attack. This appears reflected in these words from her speech, where she says God is “her onely Defender, who had delivered herself and people from the bloody designs of so cruel an enemy” (Clark, 1657, quoted in Mc Aleer, 1963, p. 603) From this quotation and what has been formerly seen in Lope’s Sonnet 46, it is possible to assert that God’s will has an enormous importance both in Spain and England.

One of Deloney’s themes for his ballads was England’s immediate past, and although he did not participate in the war like the rest of the authors discussed in this dissertation, after England’s victory, he dedicated some ballads to the episode of the Armada. As same as Lope, he transmits pro-war ideas through his writing. In these ballads he shows a Protestant and nationalist sentiment, in fact, his ballads about the Armada can be considered as the most anti-Spanish from all of the recorded ones. This anti-Spanish sentiment started to emerge in England in this period and, on account of it, a Black Legend was developed, portraying the Spaniards in a very negative way (Scully, 2003).

The first from Deloney’s ballads about the Armada that is going to be considered is called “A New Ballet of the Straunge” and it is composed by one hundred and twenty eight verses. It starts as follows:

Al you that list to looke and see (1) what profite comes from Spayne, And what the Pope and Spanyards both, prepared for our gayne. (…)

In the first verse, Deloney addresses everyone; he is trying to open people’s eyes and make them see how Spain is trying to make profit of England’s goodness. He blames both the Spaniards and the Roman Pope for their cruelty. Here, by mentioning the Pope, Deloney is giving an image of bad reputation to the Catholic Church. Religion should be good and caring, but here the Church allowed bad things to happen to the English nation by supporting the Spanish invasion.

They say they seeke for Englands good, and wish the people well (10) They say they are such holie men, all other they excell. They bragge that they are Catholikes, and Christes only Spouse And what so ere they take in hand, (15) the holie Pope allowes. (…)

In this other fragment, Spaniards are portrayed as liars and big-headed. Liars because, according to Deloney, Spaniards claim that they are holy men that want good for England and its people, however, they attack them. And big-headed because, as it is said in the fifth verse, Spaniards think they do well by taking all they want, as they are allowed to do so by the Catholic Pope. Also they think that Catholic Faith is the only truthful one, and they brag of having this power given by Catholicism.

These holie men, these sacred Saints, and these that thinke no ill See how they sought against all right, to murder, spoyle and kill. (20)

The next verses follow in a very ironic voice with the aim of ridiculing the Spaniards. Despite of bragging of being saints, what Spaniards want to accomplish are only cruelties such as death and destruction. The use of irony with this purpose of ridiculing someone or something is also used by Cervantes, as we will see later in the following section.

One sorte of whips they had for men, so smarting fierce and fell As like could neuer be deuisde by any deuill in hell. The strings whereof with wyerie knots, (45) like rowels they did frame, That euery stroke might teare the flesh they layd on with the same. And pluckt the spreading sinewes from the hardned bloudie bone, (50) To pricke and pearce each tender veine, within the bodie knowne.

(…)

In this verses, Deloney mentions that the Spaniards owned whips and other instruments meant for torture with which they tormented the English people before killing them. This fragment is very descriptive and it offers a very disgusting image of how English bodies are tortured. After all, Deloney’s purpose was to create disgust towards Spain and their method of conquest. Scully states that such instruments of torture were not found on board of the Armada (2003, p.664), then Deloney added this imaginary verses alluding to the Spanish Inquisition with the aim of creating and emphasizing Spain’s Black Legend. Deloney presented Spaniards as heartless and bloody to increase their bad reputation. There is again an allusion to religion, when the word “hell” and “devil” appear associated to the Spaniards and their instruments, trying to prove that they are the opposite of what they claim to be. This imagery and descriptions of torture continue appearing in most of the verses of the ballad, not only referring to the episode of the Armada but to previous attacks performed by Spain. For instance here:

Euen as in India once they did against those people there, (90) With cruell Curres in shamefull sorte the men both rent and teare

And set the Ladies great with childe vpright against a tree.

Deloney alludes to supposed shameful atrocities committed by the Spaniards in the Indies, like brute violence and raping of women.

The Lord defend our noble Queene, (127) and Countrie from them all.

The ballad finishes with a prayer, again, God’s help is expected to protect England, its Queen and its people from the cruel enemy that makes them miserable. It seems that Deloney wanted by all means to provoke disgust and fear towards Spaniards and to enhance their image as a dangerous enemy.

Next, the second from Deloney’s ballads to be considered is called “A Joyful New Ballad”, and it is composed by two hundred and seventeen verses. What makes this ballad different from the previous one is the fact that Deloney does not define Spaniards so negatively, but the opposite. Still, it also contains some anti-Spanish elements, as it is about to be seen.

With mightie power they come unto our coast: (10) To ouer runne our country quite, they make their brags and boast. In strength of men they set their onely stay: But we, vpon the Lord our God, (15) will put out trust alway. Great is their number, of ships vpon the sea: And their prouision wondrefull, but Lord thou art our stay. (20) Their armed souldiers are many by account: (…)

But little land, be not dismaide at all: (30)

As it appears in the verses above, Deloney describes how the attack started, and in these verses Spain’s fleet power is enhanced. This interest in portraying the Spanish Armada as powerful clearly aims to give more importance to England’s victory and greatness, because they defeated a superior enemy. It has been explained in the previous section that the English were better equipped in terms of number, speed, fire power and artillery than the Spanish Armada (Scully, 2003, p.323). It was also mentioned that when the Spaniards saw difficulties such as the weather conditions and England’s defence power all they could do was to pray and wait for a miracle that would make them win the battle. It is contradictory how in Deloney’s ballad this is put the other way around. Here the Spaniards are the ones who are powerful and England the “little” one which has to rely on faith to win. Surprisingly, he does not say anything about the huge English defence awaiting the Armada, or about the weather that was in their favour.

In the following fragment, Deloney portrays how the English started to fight against the Spanish troops in order to stop them from invading the country. More specifically, he describes to how the Spaniards died in battle.

But through his braines, with pouders force, a Bullet strong did beat. And manie more, (105) by sword did loose their breath: And maine more within the sea, did swimme and tooke their death. There might you see the salt and foming flood: (110)

Died and staind like scarlet red, with store of Spanish blood. (…)

Deloney makes reference to the death of one of the Spanish generals, called Don Hugo de Moncaldo, together with many other soldiers while they were trying to penetrate in

England through its coasts. The words used to describe death are very literal and they portray an image of horror and destruction. The aim of this explicit passage is to create shock and nausea among the readers, and probably also to indirectly provoke fear by showing what happens to the ones who dare to go against the English Empire. This imagery resembles the one portrayed by John Donne in his epigram, which will be studied later in this dissertation. After this passage comes what can be considered the most anti- Spanish part of the ballad.

To kill and murder man and wife, (135) as malice doth arise. And to deflower our virgins in our sight: (…) To set our houses a fier on our heades: (150) And cursedly to cut our throates, as we lye in our beds. Our childrens braines to dash against the ground.

Deloney justifies the Spanish loss of lives by mentioning what could have happened if the English army would have not killed the enemy in the way they did. By pointing out the terrible consequences that the English civilians would have experienced, Deloney is again creating this Spanish Black Legend, in the same way he does in the previous ballad. Spaniards are represented as savages who, if managed to enter England’s cities, would show no compassion for anybody. As the verses say, the Spaniards would have broken families, raped women, killed children, burglarized and burned houses and whole cities, etc. Nonetheless, these cruel events did never occur, but they were Deloney’s predictions about how a Spanish invasion would have been.

In comparison with the rest of texts considered in this dissertation, it is highly probable that a larger number of people, at the time of the events, heard about Deloney’s ballads, because ballads were spread quickly among the population and the lyrics were learned and sang openly on the streets. In brief, both ballads highly popularized the

Spanish Black legend that was circulating at the time, and the ways in which the English address their adversary is much worse than the way the Spaniards portray the English within the texts considered.

3.2. TEXTS REGARDING THE SACK OF CADIZ

One of the most relevant literary texts about the Sack of Cadiz was written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. He was born in Alcalá de Henares, in 1547, and died in Madrid in 1616. He was a humanist, novelist, poet and also a soldier and military leader. He participated in the fight against the Ottoman Empire and, at a very young age, he fought in the Battle of Lepanto, which took place in Italy in October 1571, and where he was seriously injured. Despite of that, he continued being a soldier for several years. (Qualia, 1949). Besides, he was a supplier of the Spanish Armada and also a tax collector for the government, which gave him the opportunity to take a close look to the way the system worked and to recognise the flaws within the Spanish society (Vilches, 2017, p.263). His discomfort with the methods followed by the government will appear reflected in his writing. He is one of the most important figures of Spanish literature, and mostly known all around the world for his novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.

While living in Seville, Cervantes dedicated a sonnet to this episode, called “A la entrada del Duque de Medina en Cádiz”, which was published for the first time, in a section dedicated to Cervantes, by Juan Antonio Pellicer in his Ensayo de una Bibliotheca de traductores españoles (Sancha, 1778, quoted in Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p. 155). Given that Seville was one of the cities which had to send help to Cadiz, Cervantes could witness the preparations and the marches of soldiers who were supposed to be the help, account on which he writes this famous sonnet. In contrast with the extremely patriotic previous Spanish literary texts, Cervantes offers a completely different view. The sonnet says as follows:

A la entrada del Duque de Medina en Cádiz Vimos en julio otra semana santa atestada de ciertas cofradías que los soldados llaman compañías, de quien el vulgo, y no el inglés, se espanta.

Hubo de plumas muchedumbre tanta que, en menos de catorce o quince días, volaron sus pigmeos y Golías, y cayó su edificio por la planta.

Bramó el Becerro, y púsoles en sarta, tronó la tierra, escurecióse el cielo, amenazando una total ruina;

y, al cabo, en Cádiz, con mesura harta, ido ya el conde, sin ningún recelo, triunfando entró el gran duque de Medina.

This sonnet, composed in the traditional Petrarchan form, stands out by its high level of expressiveness, and the use of an ironic style and double-meanings (Ruiz Pérez, 1998), which contributes to the composition’s complexity. The specific moment to which it refers is when, once the city of Cádiz was sacked and burned by the Anglo-Dutch forces in 1596, the Duque of Medina Sidonia, in charge of Cadiz’s defence, arrives to the city to find it completely destroyed. It has been explained in section 2.1. that many blame Medina Sidonia and his slowness in action for the disasters suffered in Cadiz. And among those who blame him stands Cervantes.

In the first verse of the first stanza, Cervantes mentions that in Cadiz they lived a second Holly Week during the month of July. The attack actually started in June and went on for nineteen days. But Cervantes says here July because he wants to refer exactly to those last days of the attack, when backup finally arrived to, supposedly, rescue the city. The fact that he mentions the presence of a Holly Week may seem a contradiction at first, as it is impossible for it to take place in July (Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p. 148). In Spain, the

Holly week is celebrated in March or April. But this appears in connection with the second verse, with the word “cofradías”.

The “cofradías” are brotherhoods or congregations in charge of leading the religious processions during the Holly Week. But here Cervantes uses another meaning of this word, taken from the germanías, which is the term used in Spain to describe the slang used by criminals and people from the lowest ranks of society. In this underworld slang, “cofradías” refers to a crowd of thieves and ruffians. There are several expressions in the germanías containing this word. Ruiz Pérez explains some of them (1998, p.148-149): “cofrade de disciplina” refers to a thief that is taken to the streets to be ashamed and whipped; or “cofrade del estafón” which refers to a fraudster; or “cofrade del trago” which refers to a drunkard. In this context, then, Cervantes uses a Spanish sacred religious tradition, which seems something innocent, but internally, by playing with double- meaning, he is criticizing the soldiers sent to Cadiz to help.

The use of the word “atestada” means that the number of soldiers who arrived to Cádiz was very elevated (Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p.149), nonetheless, more than helping they were creating more disturb. It has previously been mentioned that these soldiers did not have experience in using their weapons and even less they had any idea about defence strategies. So, as Cervantes says in the fourth verse, they were creating more problems for the Spanish civilians than fighting and sending the enemy away. Apart from this, the word “atestada” can come from the verb “atestar” which also means filling the barrels of wine (Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p.149). Therefore, Cervantes not only describes the soldiers as useless but also as drunkards, only wandering without accomplishing anything successful.

Moving on to the first verse of the second stanza, Cervantes describes the presence of a great number of feathers on the streets, which also has a double meaning. On the one hand, with the feathers he is describing the soldiers’ costumes, which were decorated with colourful feathers; and on the other hand, by saying that they have so many feathers, Cervantes is calling them cowards (Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p.150). This comes from the Spanish expression “ser un gallina” which is a way of calling someone a coward. In association with this idea of the feathers he introduces the word to fly, “volar”, in the third verse of the second stanza. In Spanish, “ir volando” means going somewhere very

26 quickly, then here this verb is used ironically (Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p.150), as the soldiers arrived fourteen days late, when the city was already destroyed.

By mentioning the “pigmeos y Golías”, Ruiz Pérez argues that Cervantes refers to the whole, as same as it is used in the expression “ladies and gentlemen” (1998, p.150). In this case he represents this whole by mentioning the small ones, “pigmeos”, and the giants, “Golías”. Both terms make reference to stories about battles from the classic epic and the Bible, respectively. In a passage from Homer’s Iliad, the Pygmies, which were a tribe of diminutive humans from Greek mythology, lose a battle against the cranes, with which they were in constant war (Castillo Bejarano, 2000). Besides, in a passage from the Bible it is told how the giant Goliath is defeated by David (Ruiz Pérez, 1998). All in all, what Cervantes means by this is that the Spanish soldiers, either small or tall, are all losers in this battle.

The last verse alludes to the destruction of buildings. The key is in the use of the word “planta”, which can have a literal meaning, as part of a building, falling because of the destruction the soldiers could not avoid. But on top of that, as same as in the case with the feathers, planta can have another hidden meaning, which refers to physical appearance. This is another way in which Cervantes criticizes the soldiers, who are mere physical appearance, looking proud, fierce and well dressed, but as an army they were not worth it to fight the enemy (Ruiz Pérez, 1998).

Next, the first tercet introduces in the first verse the figure of Medina Sidonia. Cervantes says that the General, addressed here as “Becerro”, “bramó”, which means that he gave the soldiers orders to stay in military formation. But to describe this military formation, Cervantes should have said “púsoles en hileras”, which is the technical name. Instead, he says “púsoles en sartas”, and “sartas” actually were the places where the galley slaves were put. So, again Cervantes treats the soldiers as mere criminals (Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p. 152). The following verse is descriptive, making allusion with the thunders to the loud noise created by the soldiers’ march, and with the darkening of the sky to the dust their march created. This tercet is closed mentioning a menacing ruin, the created by the action of the incompetent soldiers.

The final tercet is the climax of the whole sonnet. Only at the end is where Cervantes directly addresses Medina Sidonia and by his name and title, in order to make him the

27 main laughing stock. Cervantes describes how the General entered in Cadiz in a triumphal way. Here the word triumphal is, obviously, ironic. The Duque should be ashamed when entering the city, as he was unable to protect it. Moreover, looking back to the classic meaning of the word “triumph”, it alludes to the famous roman conquests. Therefore, in this context, the word cannot be associated to the Duque, as he did not even take part in the battle (Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p. 154).

The harsh, and at the same time, ingeniously rhymed sonnet that Cervantes wrote expresses the indignation of a Spaniard towards a defeat that, if it were not for the soldiers’ bravado and the Duque’s imprudence, could have been avoided (Solís, 1961, quoted in Ruiz Pérez, 1998, p.148). In contrast with the texts seen by Lope de Vega, who forgives his King’s and superior’s mistakes and keeps on supporting them, Cervantes does the opposite. He looks for someone to blame, the same as other Spaniards did after this episode, and their reasons of fury are more than justified, as the destruction in Cádiz after the battle was enormous.

Some instances that prove the devastation suffered by the citizens of Cadiz appear in a series of informative letters between Medina-Sidonia and some important personalities from Cadiz. The letters portray how houses, hospitals and churches were burned and how hostages were taken in order to receive a ransom for them. The three following extracts from the letters collected by Pando Fernández de Pinedo, Salva y Munar in an edition published in 1860 prove the gravity of the situation: “suplico a vuestra majestad, mande acudir a esto con las veras posibles (…) pues que ni navíos, ni flota, ni armada, ni Cádiz ha quedado” (p.231), “los enemigos querían pegar fuego al convento (…), y así el dicho señor presidente quedó detenido allí por vía de rescate con la demás gente que se halló en dicho convento” (p.135) or “había gran suma de mujeres y criaturas que no comía bocado que estaban dando gritos que perecían” (, p.139).

To conclude this part, it has to be remembered that, because of its nature, Cervantes’ sonnet remained unpublished for a long time. Undoubtedly, his use of irony and his scepticism towards the government’s actions were clear candidates for censorship. As opposed to this, Deloney’s ballads, discussed in the previous section, were composed as governmental propaganda to be spread and sung publicly by everyone. Then, there is a

28 clear difference on the purposes and popularity of the texts, while Cervantes’ were kept hidden, Deloney’s were performed out loud.

Let us now consider an English source, which is a text written by John Donne. This author was born in 1572, in London, city where he also died in 1631. He was a very influential poet in England and he is considered as the founder of Metaphysical Poetry. He wrote a great variety of texts such as love and religious poetry, elegies, epigrams, translations, songs and prose sermons. It is relevant to highlight that he was born a Catholic, but because of religious pressure in England during his time, he converted to Anglicanism, the same as his brother, and he fought for the Protestant cause (John Donne, no date). He was also a soldier, as he participated in some expeditions during the Anglo- Spanish war under the orders of Elizabeth, and one of them was the Sack of Cadiz (Parr, 2007, p.63). Then, it is reasonable to think that his participation in the war influenced his poetry.

As it has been explained in section 2.1., one of the solutions to which Medina Sidonia recurred in order to stop the enemy from enriching by sacking the Spanish ships that were anchored at the Bay of Cadiz was to burn and drown their own merchant ships. Donne witnessed how the Spaniards burned their own flagship, the San Felipe, in order to avoid its capture. The vessel was set on fire before part of the crew could be safely evacuated (Parr, 2007, p.63). To this episode, Donne dedicated an epigram called “A Burnt Ship”, which appears in his collection of Epigrams. The epigrams says as follows:

A Burnt Ship Out of a fired ship, which by no way But drowning could be rescued from the flame, Some men leaped forth, and ever as they came Near the foes’ ships did by their shot decay; So all were lost which in the ship were found, They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drowned.

The epigram is composed by one stanza, divided into six rhymed verses, and it portrays, as said before, the image of the sinking Spanish vessel. The Spanish sailors struggling to survive are the central subject of the poem. In the first three verses, Donne indicates that the sailors instinctively jumped out of the ship trying to escape from the

29 fire. But we see, in verse four, that they only exposed themselves to shootings from their enemy’s ships. Here Donne may be referring to the Dutch flyboats standing by the shore during the Sack of Cadiz, which by order of Raleigh and Howard, killed the remaining survivors (Flynn, 1959, quoted in Parr, 2007, p. 64). The two last verses relate the loss of Spanish lives, either by drowning within the burning ship or by being shot.

Donne’s epigram has been criticized for being cruel and uncaring; in fact, some authors have even said that “Donne treats slaughter as a joke” (Carey, 1981, quoted in Parr, 2007, p.63). On the one hand, this appears to be true, as both the title of the epigram and the detachment with which the event is told, sound quite cold. On the other hand, it has also been argued that the epigram “reflects not coldness to other’s suffering, but numbness from having recently witnessed so much of it” (Burt, 1997, quoted in Parr, 2007, p.65).

Taking into account both opinions, the epigram might have been inspired by two other episodes from different works, as Parr points out. Under one perspective, the epigram resembles the opening passage of book two of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. Montaigne, who reflects upon this work, selects a passage from the book in his essay “Of the Useful and the Honourable”. The passage says “‘Tis sweet, when the sea high and winds are driving, To watch from shore another’s anguished striving”, and it is used by Montaigne to claim that sentiments of ambition, cruelty, envy and vengeance are natural in people, such as soldiers or politicians, who would sacrifice their honour and conscience for their country (Parr, 2007, p. 65). Then, Donne’s immoral indifference after such a war horror, could be understood.

Under another perspective, the epigram resembles a passage from Sydney’s The New Arcadia, where there is a graphic description of the outcome of a sea battle. In that passage, a group of fishermen find a ship “part broken, part burned, part drowned (…) about it floated a number of dead bodies” (Sydney, 1977, quoted in Parr, 2007, p.64). In this sense, what both Sydney and Donne want to emphasize is “the pointless loss of life” (Parr, 2007, p.64) and the absurdity of war. One way or another, finding himself in that situation, Donne might have felt the need to report the event. As I previously mentioned, there is a similarity between the epigram and Deloney’s second ballad, because they both

30 portray the death of Spanish soldiers in battle. However, Donne depicts it in a more concise way.

3.3. TEXTS REGARDING THE ISLANDS VOYAGE In this final part form section three, it is important to consider another of Donne’s poems, called “The Storm”, dedicated as a verse letter to his friend, Christopher Brooke, in 1597, while he was participating in this expedition (Parr, 2007). It was mentioned in section 2.1. that the Islands Voyage, headed by the Earl of Essex, was a failed English expedition. A terrible storm disadvantaged both the English and the Spaniards, who were planning the launch of their Third Armada. It was this factor of the weather the one which inspired Donne’s letter, where he describes his unfortunate adventures during the storm at sea to his friend. The rhymed poem is composed by seventy four verses. Starting with the commentary, the two verses at the beginning of the poem seem, at first sight, to be clearly patriotic:

England, to whom we’owe, what we be, and have, said that her sonnes did seeke a forraine grave. (10) (…)

Donne, as an active participant in the scene, says that he, together with the rest of the participants of the expedition, owe everything to their country, who they are and what they own. This appears to be reason enough for which they have chosen to participate in the expedition, even if they have to die in foreign land.

The South and West winds joyn'd, and, as they blew, waves like a rolling trench before them threw. Sooner than you read this line, did the gale, like shot, not fear'd, till felt, our sails assaile; (30) (…) Lightning was all our light, and it rain'd more than if the Sunne had drunke the sea before; Some coffin'd in their cabins lye, ‘equally (45) griev’d that they are not dead, and yet must die.

As the poem goes on, Donne starts describing in detail the temporal conditions they are suffering. The poem is very dramatic, and it becomes more and more pessimistic. He uses many hyperboles, like in these two fragments, in order to depict the storm. For example, he says that the strong winds created immense and fast as a shot waves, which could easily break their ships at any moment. He also mentions the abundant rain by comparing the quantity of water falling from the sky with the one in the sea. The two last verses are the most pessimistic, he portrays the ship as their coffin; therefore death appears as unavoidable.

Pumping hath tir’d our men, and what's the gaine? (61) seas into seas throwne, we suck in againe; Hearing hath deaf'd our saylers: and if they knew how to heare, there's none knowes what to say. (…)

Approaching the end of the poem, Donne shows doubt. He fears there is no purpose anymore, as they cannot do anything to escape from the storm. Human life appears throughout the whole poem in the hands of fate; subordinated to the function of the universe (Mizejewski, 1977, p.218). At this point, the poem is not as patriotic as at the beginning, because hope is lost. The question the speaker asks himself “what’s the gaine?” calls into question if the first verses showed real patriotism. By taking a look back to the first verses, Donne says “England (…) said that her sons did seeke a forraine grave”. A second interpretation after reading the rest of the poem would imply that England is responsible of the crew’s situation. Thus, it could be argued if those first verses are really a reflection of Donne’s deep felt patriotism or if, on the contrary, he only put them there as a kind of fake propaganda (Fitzgerald, 2012, p.18).

What is interesting about this poem is the huge emphasis on the difficulties created by weather conditions, which ended up impeding England’s purpose. That is to say that Donne, rather than on vague patriotic propaganda, focuses on the experience of suffering. Because of this allusions to weather and suffering, Donne’s poem resembles Lope’s poem from the Corona Trágica, and, conversely, differs from Lope’s Sonnet 46 and Deloney’s ballads, which are merely patriotic.

4. CONCLUSIONS

This dissertation was intended to compare English and Spanish literary texts regarding different episodes of the Anglo-Spanish war which took place between 1585 and 1604, in order to portray the similarities or differences between the views both countries had of this war. After considering the different sources, I found out that there are some common subjects attached to texts from both countries. However, in some cases, the emphasis put on certain matters varies from one literary text to another.

First of all, one of this common topics is patriotism. Lope, in his Sonnet 46, enhances Spain’s power and the duty to fight for one’s country. We can see a certain questioning of the decisions taken by the King in Lope’s second poem from the Corona Trágica, nevertheless the admiration and devotion for the poet’s country and king does not cease. The same patriotic message is reflected in Deloney’s ballads. The main difference appears when we take into account Cervantes’ sonnet “A la entrada del Duque de Medina en Cádiz”. This sonnet is critical with the establishment. Cervantes criticizes the bad organisation of the government and the imprudence of Spain’s most important personalities. Apart from Donne’s poem “The Storm”, in which, as we have seen, the two first verses could be considered as false patriotism, we do not have in the considered texts such a clear critical message like Cervantes’ on the English side.

Secondly, another common topic is religion. We have seen that religion is one of the main reasons of the war, and consequently it is present in almost all the literary texts here considered. Except in Donne’s epigram “A Burnt Ship” and poem “The Storm”, in all the rest of texts religious faith is a central topic or, at least, there is a reference to it. There can be found both representations of God as an omnipotent figure, like in Lope’s Sonnet 46 or in Deloney’s “A Joyful New Ballad”, and criticism towards the opponent’s religion, like in Deloney’s “A New Ballet of the Straunge”. Also, Cervantes uses religious vocabulary in his sonnet but ironically, in order to cover up the real hidden meanings.

Thirdly, something that both sets of texts have in common is their way of expressing grief for a defeat. The similar situation that Spain and England suffered appears reflected in the texts, when they both speak of the destruction caused by weather. The storms and the wind are central topics both in Lope’s second poem from the Corona Trágica and in Donne’s “The Storm”.

Lastly, the aspect in which there are less similarities is in the way each country addresses its adversary. If we take as example the battle of The Armada, it clearly appears that the English depict the Spaniards in a much more negative way than the Spaniards do. Deloney’s “A New Ballet of the Straunge” contributes in creating Spain’s Black Legend, and depicts Spaniards as evil and mischievous while Lope, in his Sonnet 46, only compares Elizabeth with a siren, seen in mythology as evil. What is more, the English also portray the Spaniards’ death in battle as necessary, like Deloney does in “A Joyful New Ballad”, or in a cold way, like in Donne’s “A Burnt Ship”.

It has to be acknowledged that my study is exploratory only on texts from three relevant events from the war, due to word limitations. Therefore, one avenue for further study would be finding and considering more texts belonging to the rest of the battles that took place between England and Spain during 1585 and 1604, in order to provide a wider perspective of the literature of the war as a whole.

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